Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

10 minutes of Pillars of Eternity Switch showcased and explained with gameplay footage. Gives brief history of how Obsidian came to develop the game.

@JaxonH have you been playing Youngblood at all? I'm sure you're deep into FE by now but I wanted to see if you grabbed it. I've noticed its really hard to focus in handheld. Like it's super blurry when you rotate the camera and it's hard to stay focused. Some frame rate issues here and there. In docked more though it's superb in my opinion. I've played for 2.5 hours and im enjoying it. Not sure if it's quite like other wolf games or not but it's pretty fun. Wanted to see if you dove in yet and if you're experiencing the same issues as I am in handheld

All this talk of BOTW....Has anyone ever done a second play through starting from scratch? It doesn’t make sense in the context of my backlog but it’s weirdly tempting.

@electrolite77 I have, I’m actually on it now. My friend is on her third, in Master Mode now.

@electrolite77 I've actually done TWO extra playthroughs from scratch lol. It really does lend itself to more playthroughs since the gameplay loop is so perfected.

Re: The EA Quote from Earlier
The stupidest thing about that quote (that was weirdly cut from the NL article) is his excuse for not bringing the Sims 4. They’re not bringing it, because “I think we’re doing really, really well attracting Sims players (already)”. And you don’t think you could attract MORE by bringing it to a new platform.

Sims 4 sold well on XB1 and PS4, despite the awful controls, which wouldn’t be a problem for Switch (at least in hnadheld mode with a touchscreen). Plus I’m sure the Nintendo audience would love another big life sim. that’s not Animal Crossing (or have a focus on farming).

@NintendoByNature
No I haven't, been into Fire Emblem nonstop.

Wolf 2 was like that also. Its not just being lower res, it's the motion blur and other effects they use. But ya, that's all I can say as I haven't actually started it yet.

I'll be honest, NSO is slowly starting to become a decent online service outside of retro content. It's not there yet but some of more recent additions (e.g. Tetris 99, Game Vouchers, the new Game Trials thing announced today) are a step in the right direction.

NES of course is still a complete joke.

If only EA took such a stance on software monetization.

Oh, ya know, we think we’re doing really well with sales already, so we don’t need to offer MTX or coax people into spending more with proprietary matchmaking algorithms.

You know dang well they never settle for “good enough” when it comes to profit... except when it involves Nintendo.

I think one of the reasons is how damn clear as day Nintendo is about monetisation.

On PS4, the fine print for IAPs is hidden away far into a product description, and the IAPs themselves are seperate store pages.

On Switch, as you scroll through the info, the IAPs are one of the first things you see, alongside any DLC, right after the product description and before you even get stuff like file size. It's a nice big bold clickable button.

Plus, on the right, directly under price and right above "Purchase" is a nice clear "Offers in-game purchases" notice.

Not exactly subtle as EA wants.

Plus, EA lists, as the BBC checked, parental controls advice from PS4 and Xbox One, but not Switch.

Nintendo's system is being designed in such a way to actively limit this kind of thing, and that's the exact opposite of what EA wants.

Not sure if this is new news but Game (UK) has switch lite pokemon sword/shield edition available to preorder online.

@Ralizah Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of BotW, so I'm not really criticizing the game. But I do recognize the shrines ans a weakness/compromise.

I love BotW...but I still see it as a mostly dungeon-less Zelda (then again the overworld was my favorite part of the first game. I don't think I ever even did all the dungeons, I just loved exploring the overworld ) The beasts....they were interesting, but where people see them as representing the traditional dungeon, they were still too small and short to really fill that role. Though I enjoyed each of them.

If anything represented a traditional dungeon to me, there were two, somewhere near the castle, that was a much larger shrine with a lot of rolling ball elements and such that felt a lot more entailed and connected. Plus the two mazes (they counted as shrines despite being outside), I thought were very reminiscent of Zelda 1.

But regardless of the technicalities, the purpose, etc, the shrines were still each too short to offer more than a momentary diversion from the overworld. That was fine for BotW1, but as you said, I don't think BotW2 can pull off that gimmick again - we've already explored that world.

Hyrule Castle was the perfect dungeon design that could thrive with BotW's extreme freedom. There's a lot of interesting things you can do in it, or you could skip it with the powers you've obtained. I'd like to see the next game take that and then expand on the strengths of what they're planning for the next game, be it more linear or keeping the open aspect.

@Grumblevolcano I'm not really anti NSO, but I think it's probably a stretch to say it's turning into a decent service. A single game free play week for an online game in one country doesn't really compare to the other services having games available pretty much every weekend free to play in all countries, and the vouchers being a 2 month deal in NoA territory versus PSN/XBLG weekly SALE! SALE! SALE! etc. Yeah it's cheaper, but those services provide a few full free games, often major exclusives and that makes up a good chunk of what they're charging (a.k.a. the freebies aren't actually free at all.) NSO is what it is: Paying for matchmaking servers.....and NES games. Plus extended coupons (EXCEPT FOR YOU!) Plus the weird opportunity to buy a single purpose controller at full price... For $30/yr to cover all my accounts, I can't complain...but I can't sing its praises either.

Much as I argue with him about it, Yorumi does have a point....it really is paying for nothing. Sshhh, don't tell him I said so. I'll never hear the end of it

@Galarian_Lassie I said it before and I'll say it again, I really have no idea how EA actually makes as much money as they do. They're Nasdaq 100....just...how? I don't think any investor ever wants to hear "eh, we make enough money, we don't need to grow our market share any further." That usually gets you thrown off the board in the era of growth! growth! growth! It's not just a bizarre non-sequitur but it's a self-destructive statement in and of itself.

I realize opportunity cost may not pan out in numbers, but statements about calmly ignoring a potential market and the only reason given is they just don't need the extra business is pretty amateur. Especially when your competitors seem to have no problem moving into that market in your absence. We're not talking about an untapped market filled with uncertainty, we're talking about a market their competitors already moved into and are doing steady, and increasing, business in.

I know EA's shtick at this point is going to be plugging the raw power of the PS5/Scarlett and marginalizing Nintendo (a years-too-late attempt at a repeat of their WiiU strategy.)

The real problem EA has, though, is they can't actually openly state that their strategy hinges upon the mobile whale model, and the Nintendo market hasn't shown success in that model. And admitting that would draw additional questions for them considering some of their competitors do the same, but manage to be successful there anyway.

The other problem is they can't admit they bought DICE for untold millions years ago simply to get their proprietary engine so they had an in-house engine, and only then found out it was a horrendously awful engine, designed to run one game, one genre, on PC platform and isn't particularly good at doing anything else, and that decision has restricted what kind of content they can even create from that point forward, and they're trapped relying on sheer power, because their engine is really a PC-only engine.

So instead they try to reshape the industry to fit their engine and business model, because otherwise they're stuffed.

Unfortunately because they established an early foothold in the sports licensing market, they manage to rake in more money than any competitor without actually doing anything, simply but putting a box with a picture of a famous athlete on the cover on shelves, and therefore nobody notices that their push to more and more compute power does nothing but play a 1999 game with higher resolution textures, re-sold every year. Add in an exclusive Disney license which has never made an iota of sense at all from the Disney perspective (Why shop the license to a single company when you can milk it from 10 angles at once? That's not normal Disney merchandising policy.)

Ultimately I think EA will lose the SW exclusivity soon-ish, and then they'll basically be the sports & mobile company, and will effectively be (even more) irrelevant in the actual gaming industry. They'll make more money than the rest of the industry....there's more sports fans than gamers. But they'll ultimately be entirely outside the industry as much as King and Zynga. With management that incompitent it's really the only way. (And how is Wilson a director at Intel now? I'm convinced that executive positions are just kickbacks to Harvard kids to keep everything in the circle, and have nothing to do with actual business knowledge at all.)

@NEStalgia I'll have you know the free trial of Mario Tennis is across 28 countries.

You spelled incompetent wrong hahah

Just pulling your leg man, I for one have no issues with EA unlike majority of gamers. I know what I'm getting from them and that's fine with me. Never spent a cent on mictrotransactions and we tend to enjoy most of their games that we play. Looking forward to Madden tomorrow and my kids are very excited to check out the Foilage vs Undead 3 alpha in a couple hours!!

@electrolite77 I'm halfway thorough a hard mode replay that I peck on from time to time. I never finished the dlc (since I beat the game before it came out) so that was my excuse.

@EvilLucario Hyrule Castle needed puzzles, imo. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind large, fortressy environments that can be approached from multiple angles like that.

They need to take the music of Hyrule Castle and then do that, but for the whole game. Piano notes while exploring the wilderness is really nice and set the tone, but nothing got me more hyped up for the game than 1) The trailer music, you know the one and 2) Hyrule Castle. Those are the only two times I felt supremely hyped up for the game and the story around it

Cheers for the replies all. Think I may have to give it another go. I’m intrigued as to how different I can make it (intentionally or otherwise) second time around.

Shush backlog, shush 🤫😉